Coach Mark Gottfried is hoping to turn his frown upside down with a rare win against UNC on Saturday

This, my friends, is an important college basketball game.

Would you expect anything less? It’s N.C. State vs. North Carolina and emotions always run high whenever the neighboring rivals meet.

That’s especially true this time.

Not only will the Wolfpack be trying to break a 13-game losing streak to the Tar Heels and win in the series for the time in the careers of any current player, but the presence of ESPN’s College GameDay show will only add to the attention and raise the level of electricity among the crowd at PNC Arena.

If that’s possible.

But while those mitigating factors – along with some controversial remarks by UNC’s Dexter Strickland – have combined to make Saturday’s matchup the most anticipated Tar Heel-Wolfpack showdown in recent memory, they’re not the reason why this is such an important game.

Take away the hype, the trash talking and all that red, white and Carolina blue, and you have a crossroads game both teams desperately need to win – especially if they have any designs on mounting a serious regular-season challenge in the ACC this season.

“Yeah, it’s Carolina and the fans will be extra excited to play them,” State forward Scott Wood said. “But at the same time we’re going out there with the mindset that it’s another team and we need to get that win.”

This was supposed to be a special season for coach Mark Gottfried’s veteran team, and for awhile it looked like it might be. But just two weeks after what appeared to be a breakthrough win against No. 1 Duke, State is on the verge of squandering its opportunity after dropping two of its last three.

UNC has won 13 straight against rival NC State, including a victory at last year's ACC tournament on this jumper by Kendall Marshall

Another loss to UNC wouldn’t just be a psychological haymaker from which it would have a hard time recovering, it would also drop the Wolfpack three games behind surprise ACC leader Miami with the toughest part of its schedule yet to come.

The stakes are so high that point guard Lorenzo Brown and his teammates held a team meeting Thursday to discuss “the nonsense going on between us.” In that respect, the Tar Heels might just be the right opponent at the right time to help State refocus and get things headed in the right direction again.

“We know they’re playing their best basketball right now,” Brown said. “We’ve been a little lacking the last couple of games. After (Thursday’s meeting), I think everybody is back on their feet.”

The young Tar Heels, by contrast, have already gotten up and dusted themselves off after an 0-2 league start that sent panic through the ranks of their supporters.

They’ve won three straight and looked better in doing it.

And yet, even though freshman point guard Marcus Paige is playing with more confidence, young big men Brice Johnson, Joel James and Desmond Hubert are starting to make meaningful contributions and veterans Reggie Bullock and James Michael McAdoo are finally becoming the consistent scorers and leaders their team needs to succeed, this UNC team is still very much a work in progress.

Strickland

In a way, the Wolfpack really is “the least of (the Tar Heels’) worries,” as Strickland said back in October amid the preseason hype surrounding State. UNC still has too many concerns of its own right now, some of which can be eased greatly with a winning performance in a rivalry game in front of a hostile crowd.

“I think we are close, I really do. I think we are close to being a good basketball team,” coach Roy Williams said. “(But) we’ve got to finish plays more, we’ve got to make more shots. No question about that. We’re doing some good things. The best news is, now I hope it’s in my lifetime, that we can get a lot better.”

The same can be said for State, although in the case of the Wolfpack the expectation for that growth is much more immediate.

The result of Saturday’s matchup – the first in at least two decades in which a ranked State team has gone head-to-head with an unranked UNC – could go a long way toward determining the direction each team takes for the remainder of the season.